Innovative thinking is a must if you want to take quantum leaps in learning, business, or any other area of your life. If we fail to be creative thinkers that are always looking for a way to make things better, we fail ourselves.
Learning to be better and do better should be a constant focus. Continual learning is a necessity for those that want to make it to the highest heights in any area. Continue reading this article to learn top habits that will help you as you learn how to be innovative.
Innovative Thinking Habits to Embrace
We all know that when we want to create lasting change, we must implement the important things into our routines. We have to create lasting habits for lasting results. These following habits will continue to serve you throughout your life.
1. Capture ideas quickly
If your ideas think they are going to fall on deaf ears, they are less likely to come. In fact, you may be having great ideas daily, but you aren’t listening.
If something pops into your mind, capture it quickly. You can always reassess how valid it is later.
Don’t have time to write it down? Use a voice recorder to capture every idea that comes to you so you don’t miss out on your mental goldmine.
Once you have your ideas captured, you shouldn’t let them slip away. Have a process in place that will allow you to go back through your voice clips. It doesn’t have to take a long time, but you should have a way to sort the ideas as you go through them.
As more tech advances take place, you’re likely to find a way to file your ideas that will allow you to access them quickly. You never know when you’re going to hit a creative dry spell, so keep your ideas where you can access them easily.
2. Don’t let your ego cloud your judgement
If you want people to be open to your ideas, be open to people’s ideas. If you train your brain to think people are going to be judgmental and not listen to what you have to say, your brain fountain may start to dry up.
Being open to other people’s ideas often gets your own mind going. If you let your ego go wild, you often will be too busy worrying about what people think about you that you won’t be able to come up with good ideas.
Egos often lead us down the wrong path. Egos want to protect us from looking bad so they try to take us down the popular path. True innovation isn’t often popular, so you need to keep in mind that your ego might try to stop you from going down a good path out of fear.
While our ego is in place to protect us, it doesn’t understand what is good for us or bad for us. Define your goals and don’t let your ego derail you from what you’re going after.
3. Curiosity is your friend
A curious mind is a mind that is ever seeking the next level. It is seeking the next level in life, business, relationships, and any other area. Children have the ability to learn quickly and come up with ideas because of their curiosity.
Develop a childlike curiosity that will spur new ideas and allow you to come up with systems, products, and other important things that will make your life better. Curiosity can cause some people to go down rabbit holes and keep from getting things done, so make sure you set a timer when you go into your curious times; you still have to work!
4. Listen more than you talk
You already know everything you know. If you talk more than you listen, you’re likely giving other people ideas, but it isn’t likely that you’re getting many.
You don’t want to be stingy with your conversation, but you also want to keep in mind what percentage of the conversation you’re talking. If there are five people in the conversation and you’re talking more than one-fifth of the time, there might be something wrong.
This is one of the times when your ego might come into play and try to get you to be super chatty. Being chatty is fine, but if you’re looking for ideas, you need to use your ears more than using your mouth.
If you’re in a room with people you respect and want to learn from, you should have a notepad. You may even be able to ask permission to record the conversation so you can go back and listen to it later when you have time to take notes.
5. Always empathising
If you want to be a truly innovative thinker, you need to learn how to empathize. If you can feel someone else’s pain, you have a better idea of how to solve their problem.
Problem solvers are the people that make the most money. If you can solve a major problem, you can make major money.
While other people might know what their problem is, they might not have the skills to solve that problem. On the other hand, you might have the skills to solve it, and if you’re being empathetic, you’ll know there is a problem.
Learn more tips & tricks for boosting your business
Innovative thinking is one of the top skills for business builders. Businesses solve problems. If you’re solving problems and people love your products, then you’re likely to stay in business for the long-term.
Learning how to win in business is one of the top things you should focus on as a business owner. Being innovative is important, but you have to focus on building important skills as well.
Most business owners get stuck at a certain level. You have to learn how to grow your business strategically. Go through our growth strategies section to get the help that you need today.